Disclosure: The publisher, The Quarto Group, gave me a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Background
I have previously reviewed Martin Popoff’s coffee table book about Van Halen and when I got the opportunity to review his updated album by album coffee table book about Iron Maiden, I jumped on it. I don’t regularly listen to a lot of Iron Maiden, but I’m always willing to learn about rock bands I don’t listen to as much and who knows, maybe some of their songs become a regular rotation listen for me. I always love to encourage open-mindedness when listening to music. Life is too short to limit yourself, after all. Remember, when you read a book about something you don’t know much about, you’re getting an education!
In case you don’t know much about the author, Martin Popoff is a prolific music journalist and author who is very passionate about hard rock music and has written books about a lot of hard rock bands. In the introduction of the book, you can find his story about how he got into Iron Maiden back when they were a new band and how he got to see them live in the early 80s. Back in those days, the world wasn’t as globalised so getting an album from a hip new band from overseas was a big deal and it was an import. It’s not as simple as today where you can search on the web and buy the album and wait for it to be delivered. Back in those days it was a treasure hunt at the record store, a third place of sorts.
This book is part of his Album By Album series of books and he’s previously written books with this format about Rush, AC/DC, and Pink Floyd. There are contributions from other fans and classic rock experts in the book and in this book we have contributions from Blaze Bailey (of Wolfsbane and member of Iron Maiden in the 90s), Rich Davenport (UK based music writer), Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth (of Overkill), Marty Friedman (of Cacophony), Matt Heafy (of Trivium), Tim Henderson (Iron Maiden superman from Canada and founder of Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles), Chris Jericho (rock star and professional wrestler), Jimmy Kay (host of the The Metal Voice.com), Sean Kelly (guitarist who has worked with Nelly Furtado and many other musicians), Mike Portnoy (of Adrenaline Mob, The Winery Dogs, and Dream Theater), Franc Potvin (Iron Maiden fan and expert based in Canada), Kirsten Rosenberg (animal rights activist who performs as Bruce Chickinson of The Iron Maidens, an all-girl Iron Maiden tribute band), Brian Slagel (founder of The New Heavy Metal Revue and Metal Blade Records), Nita Strauss (Mega Murray of The Iron Maidens and touring guitarist for Alice Cooper), and Ahmet Zappa (son of Frank Zappa and executor of the Zappa Family Trust). Each chapter has credits at the top of the first page listing who contributed as well as a picture of the album art and the track listing and credits. Martin Popoff is the main author and interviewer, writing blurbs about each album to set the scene and the contributions are in the form of interviews with Popoff asking thoughtful questions about the music and the contributors providing some interesting insights and stories. I especially love it when you get multiple interviewees chiming in with their answers to the same question.
As you can expect, it’s a journey through the band’s discography from the beginning to the end, not just a look at their music from their heyday, so a good read for completionists and those wanting to learn about all of the albums.
So join me on this journey through one of the greats of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal!
The Review
In April of 1980 Iron Maiden made an impact on the new decade with their self-titled debut that peaked at #4 on the UK albums charts. The band have been around for five years at this point, forming on Christmas of 1975 in London. After some months of rehearsing, they made their live debut at St Nick’s Hall in Poplar and played in various pubs before recording their first demos in 1978. The investment paid off and Neal Kay, the manager of metal club Bandwagon Heavy Metal Roundhouse quite liked their song “Prowler” and would often play it at the club and it topped the Soundhouse charts. After selling 5,000 copies of The Soundhouse Tapes, they got a record deal with EMI. Their self-titled debut was recorded in just 13 days, but the band weren’t happy with the production value. Still, it was a commercial success and releasing your first album is always a milestone for any rock band, can’t get to your second, third, and so on albums without releasing your first album. Iron Maiden were often compared to Black Sabbath for their genre-defining debut, both of them being self-titled. The cover art is also really iconic and sets this signature style and introduced the world to Eddie, the band’s mascot. The appeal was in how punk it sounded and how punk was the opposite of hippie and poppy stuff like disco and new-wave.
The following year, Iron Maiden released their sophomore album Killers, which Popoff describes as their Van Halen II. Once again, these were songs performed on the road before being recorded in the studio. The band themselves considered these songs B-grade, but we’re all our own worst critics, right? Production was stepped up with Martin Birch producing this album, a start of a long relationship, with him producing their next eight albums, until 1992’s Fear of the Dark, after that Steve Harris and Nigel Green produced two albums before hiring South African producer Kevin Shirley. The band started to come into their own with a signature gallop and twin lead guitar sound. At this point, heavy metal was growing in popularity in Maiden’s native UK, but the genre had not caught on quite yet in the US. Let it marinate for a couple more years. Original lead singer Paul Di’Anno was not keen on Killers and this album marked the end of an era because he was fired due to his alcohol and cocaine use affecting his stage performances and bandmates saying that he didn’t take things seriously enough. What’s really cool about this album is there’s a song based on an Edgar Allan Poe short story “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, appropriate titled song for an album called Killers. There are also two killer themed instrumentals on this album: “The Ides of March” and “Genghis Khan”.
New year, new lead singer, new album, The Number of the Beast is the first album to feature Bruce Dickinson, formerly of Samson, on lead vocals. His sound is more melodic and operatic, compared to Paul Di’Anno’s more punk style. A big part of a band’s sound is the lead vocalist of course and any fan of a band would naturally worry about a lead vocalist being replaced since it can be big shoes to fill. Thankfully, fans love Bruce Dickinson and signature songs “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “Run to the Hills” are on this album. The album was recorded in five weeks and coincidentally producer Martin Birch got into a van accident with a group of nuns and the bill was £666, I kid you not! The experience in the studio was haunted with lights flickering on and off and the equipment being antiquated, reminds me of that SpongeBob episode where Mr Krabs makes the Krusty Krab a 24/7 restaurant and SpongeBob and Squidward worry about the Hash Slinging Slasher and then it turns out that Count Orlok of Nosferatu is the person behind the lights flickering. That same year, they headlined the Reading Rock Festival. Meanwhile in the US, their new album was provoked the ire of conservative Christians, who called the band satanic. Much ado about nothing because the lyrics tell stories, that is all. Of course, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about and Iron Maiden flourished. In December 1982, Nicko McBrain, formerly of French band Trust, replaced Clive Burr as drummer.
McBrain’s first album with Iron Maiden was Piece of Mind, released in 1983. This album had famous songs like “The Trooper” and “Flight of Icarus”. On the cover, you’ll see that Eddie has been lobotomised, an outdated psychiatric surgery from the 1940s, and he is in a straitjacket in a padded cell. Something that would be indeed very controversial today!
Powerslave was more than just an album, the tour to support it, the World Slavery Tour, an ambitious 187 dates long tour that took the band all over the world to countries as far away as Australia, Japan, and Brazil over a 331 day period. Once again, we get some literary references with closer “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” being based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem of the same name. It’s an epic at 13:45. In a way it’s an end of an era with it being the last album with an instrumental: “Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra)”.
Due to the world tour, there was no studio album released in 1985. In 1986, Iron Maiden released Somewhere in Time and this was their first album to feature guitar synthesisers, which some metal purists might question, but the band never went down the hair metal route.
Once again, there was no studio album released in 1987, but in 1988 concept album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was released and debuted at #1 on the UK albums charts. The title is a bookish one related to folklore, inspired by Orson Scott Card’s book Seventh Son. After a break from writing songs, Bruce Dickinson returned to writing, feeling more energised by this interesting concept. This was an album of collaboration with many of the songs being written by two or more members. It is an influential album and a fan favourite. At this point though, American metal was growing and they had bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Rats to compete with. And in the late 80s/early 90s bands like Metallica and Pantera were on the rise as well as a big shakeup in rock and roll: grunge. Still they stayed active in the 90s and 2000s with albums like The X Factor, Virtual XI, Brave New World, and Dance of Death. Blaze Bayley joined the band as lead singer from 1994-1999. Of course with the band getting older and the music industry changing, they weren’t releasing albums as often, but they were also getting awards and accolades and being recognised for their contributions to rock and roll.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I think this is a great comprehensive book for learning about Iron Maiden’s discography. What a bookish intelligent band with amazing guitar work. With so many cool pictures from over the years, it’s part museum, part documentary, part magazine all packaged conveniently into a neat book. As always, these books are thoughtfully designed giving it the band’s aesthetic. I also love how the contributions are done Q&A interview style instead of being quoted and put in paragraphs with author commentary in between linking them. It makes it easier to follow and the answers are in context. I love how they talk about deep cuts and under appreciated gems from Iron Maiden’s discography. If you’re wanting to know about this music, this is the book for you, but there isn’t as much focus on the band’s history as people, so if you’re looking for that I’d suggest a different book. If you’re all about the music, then this is it!
Liked this blog post and want to support and see more? Donate to The Diversity of Classic Rock on Patreon or Paypal or follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, buy my book Crime of the Century, click the follow button on my website, leave a nice comment, send your music or classic rock related books for review, or donate your art and writing talents to the blog. Thank you for your support! I’m currently running a special where if you donate any amount of money to my Patreon or PayPal, you’ll get a Crime of the Century ebook, so it’s basically pay what you can! The best deal you’ll get on the book and you won’t find this deal anywhere else!
Leave a Reply to mikeladanoCancel reply